Union says N.B. nurses working in makeshift hospital unit doing the best they can

A makeshift unit has been created to deal with overcrowding at a Fredericton hospital.

The president of the New Brunswick Nurses’ Union says the medical transition unit (MTU) created over a year ago at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital to help with overcrowding is far from adequate, but nurses are doing the best they can.

The unit is in the spotlight after an open letter to Premier Susan Holt, written by Katarina Lekborg, was shared over 6,000 times on social media,

Lekborg describes her 88-year-old grandmother’s experience being treated in the makeshift treatment unit located in the ambulance bay of the hospital, writing that there’s no bathroom, running water, doors or windows, and the lights stay on all day and all night.

“Health care is governed by a fundamental duty, do no harm. What is happening now is harm. This is not care. It is a systemic failure,” she wrote in the letter.

Holt confirmed Thursday she’s been in contact with Lekborg. On Friday, the premier’s office said there’s no update on the situation.

Paula Doucet says a group of nurses have been assigned to the unit, and some days are much busier than others.

The NBNU president calls it a temporary fix, saying it should be a wake-up call for the system.

“It’s hallway nursing versus garage nursing. You know, they’re both inadequate. They’re both unacceptable,” she said. “But we’re faced with infrastructure that has not kept up with demand. And we know that when the DECH was built many years ago, the population of Fredericton was much less than what it is today.”

The Chalmers Hospital was built in the mid 1970s. A $250-million addition to the hospital began in 2016 and was supposed to be open by now. Maternal and newborn care, surgeries and ambulatory procedures will move to the addition once completed.

But New Brunswick Green Party Leader David Coon feels at least a portion of the space should be finished at this point – enough to house the temporary MTU’s 13 beds.

“There’s 160,000 square-feet on three floors that is not occupied yet. It’s huge. It’s big. And they could put 13 beds in there, even in the labour delivery maternity ward, which isn’t going to be open for a while yet,” he said. “And all the amenities that they need are right there.”

Horizon’s clinical executive director of operations and patient flow says the new addition is “purpose-built clinical spaces.”

“While the expansion will add valuable clinical capacity for maternal, newborn, and surgical services, it won’t resolve the fundamental issue driving overcrowding, which is the high number of medically discharged patients occupying acute care beds,” David Arbeau said in a statement.

Coon visited Lekborg’s grandmother while she was in the MTU and got a sense of what it’s like.

He says the family put extra sheets to try and block some of the light coming through the curtain so the woman could get better sleep. He believes she was there for about three days before being moved to another unit in the hospital.

He called it appalling and says it also means paramedics have to remain outside.

“It’s quite a mess. Once again, you know, these problems could be addressed, if you had a hospital administrator or CEO in the hospital with that authority. And we used to, and we don’t have them anymore,” he said.

Horizon Health said the new addition is still under active construction.

On its’ website, it says the surgical suite is expected to be complete in early 2026, while the labour, delivery and neonatal intensive care units will open sometime “winter 2026 through fall 2026.”

Doctors concerned, say urgency is needed

The N.B. Medical Society’s president says she’s concerned about the MTU and the impact it’s having on patient care and staff wellbeing.

Dr. Lise Babin points to the issue of long-term care too. In a statement, she said most hospitals in the province are “overcrowded, experiencing space constraints, and plagued with insufficient resources.”

“The unfortunate reality is that until this larger systemic long-term care issue is addressed, makeshift units like these remain the only option for some of our hospitals,” she said. “We can and should improve conditions in these units in the short-term; however, we cannot lose sight of the urgency of addressing the actual solution, which resides well outside of our hospitals in the realm of long-term care.”

Today, 121 patients at the Chalmers Hospital are considered medically discharged but are waiting for a long-term care placement. That’s 35 per cent of the hospital’s beds.

“If we could discharge and place those patients in the appropriate care settings today, the space constraints we’re seeing in our hospital to place newly admitted patients would be greatly eased,” said Arbeau.

Doucet says there are more nurses who’ve been hired in the last year, which has been helpful with overcrowding, but more are still needed.

“Nurses are working with more staff than they have been in the past year. However, it’s still not adequate. We still need more bodies in place, to provide the safe patient care that is required. They’re tired still because they’ve come through some pretty rough years,” she said.

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